


Space Oddity

by daltonacademyfightclub



Series: space wrasslin' [2]
Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Angst with a Happy Ending, Families of Choice, Gen, M/M, Outer Space, Space Flight, Space Freighting, Symbionts, in the not-cool way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-03
Updated: 2016-02-03
Packaged: 2018-05-17 22:35:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5887891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daltonacademyfightclub/pseuds/daltonacademyfightclub
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The death of a loved one can change a person... but not like this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Space Oddity

“Mission Control,” Cody Rhodes’s voice was clear and direct as Randy listened to the tape. “Mission Control, I’m out here in sector five; systems have been overridden by an unknown entity -” There was frantic clicking as Cody reported and worked at the shield generator at the same time. “There are no other vessels in a ten-click radius…”

Randy’s hand gripped the back of the seat that his boss, Hunter Hearst Helmsley was currently sitting in, bracing himself for what he knew was coming.

“There are no tractor beams detected; I am in good health,” Cody’s voice began to pick up speed as he edged closer and closer to panic. “I am leaving my radar on for passing ships -”

That’s when the black box finally fizzled out. Hunter turned around to look at Randy (and Ted, who Randy didn’t even realize was still there), eyebrows raised. “And you’re telling me he doesn’t remember what happened next? Nothing at all?”

“He might have traveled too far out of radio range,” the youngest member of Mission Control, a young man Randy only knew as Saxton, suggested lamely. “There’s always the off-chance that he entered a magnetic field that distorted the communications -”

“An’ there’s always the off-chance that yer a blitherin’ idiot, Byron,” another member named JBL countered, making Saxton’s face twitch in irritation. Randy gritted his teeth. He needed to know exactly what happened to Cody in the two weeks between this last transmission and _Hard Times’_ discovery, not how JBL felt about newcomers to the MC booth.

“Can we talk about the fact that he somehow managed to live for at least a week without water?” Randy interjected. “Even with stretching out the emergency supply in the refrigerator, he had enough for a week. Cody is in almost-perfect health after being gone for two.”

Hunter shrugged. “I don’t know. But I feel like we should just be grateful that he’s back safe and… mostly sound. The medical bay will monitor him until they decide he’s good enough to be cleared.” He pushed his chair back, nearly running Randy’s foot over in the process, and if Randy was hearing right, he could have sworn he heard one of Hunter’s lackeys mention something about ‘saving paperwork’.

Ted rubbed Randy’s shoulder, chewing on his bottom lip. “You wanna go see him again?” he asked quietly, obviously trying not to draw too much attention from the other men still left in the room before they left.

Randy nodded. Maybe Cody would be back to normal before they knew it.

* * *

Randy loved to watch Cody in the copilot’s seat of _Legacy_. He wasn’t particularly interesting to watch or anything - in fact, if it wasn’t Cody, he’d probably be bored in less than a minute - but the way he seemed to casually love what he did made Randy happy to work with him and Ted on missions. It probably didn’t hurt that they were raised in the business and practically groomed to succeed their fathers as the next generation of pilots.

He remembered how shy Cody had been when he first met him almost twenty years ago when they were kids, Cody sitting in the cockpit of his father Dusty’s _Hard Times_ military-grade tender and pretending to get the engines going until he noticed he was being watched from below.

“M’boy Cody’th up in the cockpit,” Dusty told him, patting Randy on his little crew cut head as Randy let go of his father’s hand to try and get a better look at the bright-eyed boy who’d ducked right out of sight. “Why don’t you go up there and thay hello while I talk to your daddeh down here.”

Randy had dashed up the ramp, boots banging on the metal as he went upstairs in search of Cody. “Hello!” Randy called, not sure where to turn to find the cockpit on this unfamiliar ship or even if the boy he was looking for was even _there_ anymore. “My name’s Randy! My dad has a ship too!”

“What’s your dad’s ship?” a voice behind Randy asked, and he spun around to see the boy from the cockpit standing behind him, a half-eaten lunar pear in his hand and the sticky sheen from the juice all over his chin to boot. “Who’s your dad?”

“Cowboy Bob Orton,” Randy replied, watching Cody munch on the pear some more. “He can’t fly right now, though; he hurt his arm.”

“Oh.” Cody’s answer was short, but not mean-spirited in the slightest. He looked over behind Randy at where he would learn later was where the refrigerator on the ship was located. “You want a snack? Dad always has so much stuff on board, but Mom says I can’t have any of it.”

Randy grinned a little, ignoring the fact that the gap where he’d just lost a tooth was showing. Dusty Rhodes seemed like the kind of guy who had a lot of snacks. “Yeah, sure. If you want somethin’ of your dad’s, I won’t tell.”

“Cool,” Cody said with a matching grin, an actual gap between his front teeth revealing itself as he walked past Randy with the pear core to check what was inside. “I like the cupcakes. We can have those.”

Now, twenty years, time spent in the academy together, and countless missions later, it was a common sight to see Cody leaning forward in his seat to reach for the package of cupcakes he had on _Legacy_ ’s dashboard. Some things never changed.

Randy watched as Cody reached forward to get the water bottle from the tray next to his cot in the medical bay. It didn’t seem like his motor skills, fine or otherwise, were impaired in any way, but there was a certain hesitation in Cody’s motions that just wasn’t there before he was recovered.

“You doin’ alright, Codes?” Randy asked softly, keeping his eyes on the water bottle until it was securely in Cody’s grasp. “Overheard one of the nurses saying something about letting you back out to our quarters tonight.”

To his surprise, Cody shook his head no. “I need to stay here… rest more.” He looked at Randy. “Surely you understand. After all, how long was it?”

“Two weeks.” Randy’s voice was calm. Cody probably had situational amnesia or something. He had always been a little anxious to begin with. “You left on the second and you were recovered on the seventeenth.”

“Right, two weeks.” Cody didn’t sound fazed at all. “Two weeks is a long time to be stranded.”

Randy just nodded and stood up, moving to put a hand on Cody’s shoulder before he shrugged away. “I’m sorry,” Cody offered in way of an explanation after he saw Randy freeze up in surprise. Cody tended to be clingier than anyone, male or female, that Randy knew. This was small potatoes compared to how they used to be. “I just don’t want to be touched right now.” He looked up at Randy, eyes on the wider side. “I hope you can understand that.”

“Of course,” Randy murmured, hand falling to his side again. _He just needs time,_ he assured himself as he left the medical bay. _He’ll be back to normal in no time._

* * *

“I think Dad’s been making really good progress,” Cody said one day, fiddling with the hazard controls in an effort to get a passing freighter to flash them back. “He’s certainly back to his old self mentally, and he’s up and walking and everything.”

“That’s great, man,” Randy said, setting the navigator to northeast and going on autopilot. The mission was taking longer than they would’ve liked due to some address issues (an entire _system_ of difference), but they should be back by next week, give or take a couple of hours for fuel and supply stops. “Glad to hear he’s doing better.”

Randy hadn’t heard much from his own father in the past year, but since he settled back down in the lower territories with his mother for retirement, Bob Orton wasn’t big on socializing or traveling anywhere outside of the Southern Disk. “I’ve flown enough in my day, Randall,” his dad told him back in December when he called home for the holidays. “I think enough’s enough.”

He took it all in stride, though. At his retirement party years ago, he gifted Randy his _Invader_ , now running under _Legacy_ for nearly five years. It was a pile of outdated junk when it came to hyperdrive and living features, but it was _his_ pile of junk that he shared with Cody and Ted, and it was the best gift his dad could have ever given him.

“You’ll have to swing by and see him when you get back, then,” Randy continued, opening the camera to the cargo deck to make sure all the boxes they were transporting were safe and sound. “I bet you anything he’s back in Mission Control already, lissss-thping his way through the countdown.”

Cody laughed and leaned over to slap Randy’s arm. “Don’t be like that. You’re like a son to him too, you know.”

They found out after they had been docked and down for the night for a couple of hours that Randy’s second father had passed away in his sleep the night before.

Cody sat stony-faced in front of the radio transmitter, listening to Natalya explain the circumstances of Dusty Rhodes’s death as tactfully as possible. “The ground crew was only given the news ten minutes ago, and I think the front office knew before -”

“They waited until I was a long way’s away from the hangar to let _me_ know, huh,” Cody mumbled, Ted and Randy watching his ball his hands into and out of fists from a distance. “Waited until I was out hauling cargo ‘fore they decided to break the news.”

“The funeral will be two days from now, if you can make it,” Natalya pressed on, trying to be gentle but get all of the information out at the same time. “Dusty wanted to have a space send-off, so they are arranging that.”

“ _Legacy_ won’t be able to make it,” Randy spoke up, making Cody and Ted look at him, the former with a face full of misery. “There’s no way the thrusters -”

“Not even with the extra ones?” Ted chimed in as Cody got up from his seat, brushing past Randy on his way back to the cots set up in the back for the three of them to sleep on. “I think -”

Randy watched as Cody left silently and clapped Ted on the shoulder before whispering in his ear. “You talk about a way we can get back, I’ll go in there and talk to him.” Ted just nodded and took Cody’s spot near the middle console, trying to figure out a viable solution as Randy made his way to the back as well.

Cody was standing in front of the cots, and from what he could tell from his back rapidly rising and falling, was on the edge of tears.

“C’mere, Codes,” Randy said softly, holding his arms out as his best friend did just that, placing his head on Randy’s shoulder facing his neck and Randy rocked them together gently, slowly, closing his own eyes as he felt the side his neck and the collar of his shirt grow wet with tears.

“It’s gonna be alright, Cody,” he whispered, pressing his lips to Cody’s temple for half a second. However long it took for that to be true, Randy would be right there with Cody, waiting.

* * *

“How’d you get in here?” Randy asked as he stumbled into _Legacy_ ’s cockpit after a long, sleepless night worrying about the man now standing before him. “They gave you back your keys this early?”

 _You said you wanted to rest more,_ Randy wanted to say, but he was too happy to see Cody happy and safe on his ship to worry much about that. He walked further into the cockpit, taking his rightful position in the pilot’s chair before looking back at Cody.

“Well, c’mon now. Pop a squat and buckle up. If we finish this trip to AZ-85008 by lunch, I don’t think Hunter’ll assign us anything more for the day.” Randy beamed as Cody sat down next to him, buckling up before leaning forward to activate his copilot control board.

“Where’s…” Cody began to say, trailing off and looking at Randy for help.

“Where’s Ted?” Randy finished for him, smiling when Cody nodded. They had a little more work to do, apparently, before they got Cody in perfecting working order, but if a couple of lost memories was the biggest issue, then it would be easy enough to handle in due time. “Ted is still in bed. I figured that he could use the sleep, and we didn’t necessarily need to use him on a flight as simple as this, y’know?”

“Of course.” Cody’s answer was short, but Randy didn’t expect him to say much in the first place. He could pick up the slack and do the talking for both of them. Cody would probably find it endearing, actually. “So,” he spoke again, looking around as Randy switched from watching the camera in the cargo deck to watching Cody. “The ship… I am going to need you to help me find my way around.”

“Oh,” Randy said, frowning. He didn’t know that Cody’s memory was that bad off. Maybe he should’ve woken up Ted.

Cody just nodded, looking behind him at the rest of the ship. “I just need my memory refreshed.”

Randy nodded as well, closing down the cargo deck camera and turning on the radio to hear Mission Control clear them for takeoff. _It’s just a reminder, nothing special._ “Of course.”

* * *

Everyone knew that his father’s death had hurt Cody, but only the crew of _Legacy_ knew just how broken he was inside.

“You three don’t need to be going down to the old territories for a long time,” Natalya warned Randy as he watched her fix a broken lock on one of the oxygen vents. Makaveli, her and her husband’s cat with the smushed-up face, brushed up slightly against his pant leg. “And here you are in the middle of a whole week where you’ve been doing just that.”

“You know we don’t get to pick domestic missions,” Randy reminded her, crossing his arms over his chest. “I haven’t let Cody leave the ship when we stop to deliver the shipments, so it can’t be _that_ bad -”

“So you just leave him on the ship alone,” Natalya corrected, looking back at him. “Wow, that must feel _wonderful_ to look out on your dead dad’s old stomping grounds -”

“After this week, we won’t do anymore, okay?” Randy was getting agitated. They were all trying their best to get back to the same level of comfortableness as they’d had before all of this happened. “In fact, I’ll ask Hunter tonight if we can take some time off. You wanna spend time with Tyson, right?”

Natalya scoffed as if to ask what kind of question _that_ was. “Of _course_ I do, Randy.”

“Then I’ll ask him about that first, Cody second. I don’t need the people upstairs getting the wrong idea ‘bout Cody’s work ethic.” That seemed simple enough of a request, and if Randy did it politely, given his flawless track record, it shouldn’t be a difficult thing to allow.

He just didn’t expect Cody to want to go fill orders without him during the break.

* * *

Life went on, and Randy found himself rediscovering the parts of the old Cody Rhodes in all of the new.

Flicking the lights on and off to engage passing cruisers? Definitely old Cody. Cupcake crumbs on the copilot controls and plastic wrappers leftover in the seat when he stood up? Classic Codes. And when Randy reached his hand over at night to stretch out and Cody let his hand fall comfortably into his, that was the most authentically Cody thing Randy had experienced in a long time.

There were other parts of him, though, that were just plain odd. Cody, who had never wanted a callsign in his life, all of a sudden wanted to be called the ‘Stardust’ to Randy’s ‘Viper’ when they were dealing with Mission Control. He started dressing out more as well, opting for the shiny black and gold flight suit that Dusty had bought him on a whim one Christmas as an everyday outfit rather than just a joking stunt. It was when Cody refused to respond to anything _but_ his callsign that things truly got weird.

“Are you going to have him sent back to the medical bay for a psych evaluation?” Ted asked one day as he poured himself some coffee in the breakroom. “Nattie and I couldn’t blame you if you did.”

“He’s just trying to find himself,” Randy replied diplomatically, looking up from his own cup of coffee at his fellow crew member. “It’s all a game to Cody. He’s doing just fine.”

“Whatever you say, man,” Ted said, shrugging and pouring an absurd amount of milk in his drink. “All I’m saying is that Mr. ‘Prince of Dark Matter’ could probably use some checking out.”

Randy didn’t want to admit it, but Ted was right. No matter how much of the old Cody was left, the new him was taking over… and all he could do was watch and see where things progressed.

* * *

“Why are you volunteering for runs through uncharted systems?” Randy demanded to know, crossing his arms over his chest and staring down at his best friend who was paying him no attention in _Legacy_ ’s copilot’s chair. “Are you out of your goddamn mind?”

“Maybe,” Cody answered sarcastically, raising his eyebrows, and Randy had almost forgotten how snotty Cody could be sometimes. “They’re solo missions; you don’t have to worry about anything -”

“Which makes it ten times worse!” Randy pulled the chair around to face him, ignoring the fact that Cody was digging his heels into the floor of the cockpit to try and stop him. “Dammit, Cody, why do you go and pull stupid shit like this?”

Cody looked up at him, the lightning-like spark in his blue eyes gone. “Why, you’ve got a problem with it?”

“Yeah, I do!” Randy leaned down and took Cody’s face into his hands, looking him in the eyes. If this didn’t do it, nothing would. “Cody, I fucking _love_ you. You’re all I’ve got sometimes, you said yourself that I’m all you’ve got - why won’t you just stay?”

Cody reached up and pulled Randy’s hands down from his face, getting up from the copilot’s chair and heading to the back of the ship, leaving Randy standing there speechless in his wake. “I just don’t want to.”

A week later, Cody left in a newly-refurbished _Hard Times_ , bound for systems unknown. Randy chewed on his lip, still silently pleading as he watched the old tender go off into the distance for the first time in thirty years.

_Come back home. I miss you already. The ship’s not the same without you._

_Don’t go where I can’t follow._

* * *

“We’re taking him to the medical bay!” Ted called into the cockpit as Randy heard something crash in the back of the ship minutes before they were set to go on a trip to somewhere in the northern United Nebulas. “Cody’s eyes are fucking _scarlet_ , Rand!”

“It’s _STARDUST_!” a shrill voice shrieked as Randy got up and pressed the button to lower the ramp, watching as Cody was being dragged by both Natalya and Ted down the descending metal sheet, the two of them not wasting any time as Randy hurried to follow behind.

“He’s - _fuck_ \- fucking losing it, Randy,” Natalya said, twisting Cody’s arm back to hold him steady. “Ted told you -”

“I know what Ted told me,” Randy said, watching as one of the medical personnel came up to Cody with a syringe full of clear liquid at the ready, stabbing it through the black and gold flight suit at Cody’s side as what was left of his best friend let out a howl of pain and sagged to the ground. “Guess it’s getting done now,” he mumbled, gently moving Natalya and and Ted out of the way to hold Cody upright by himself as a manned stretcher soon followed.

“We’re gonna take care of you, Codes,” he whispered into Cody’s ear just before he let the medics take him to the medical bay for however long he needed. “It’s gonna be alright.”

Cody turned his head to look back at the three of them as he was carted away, and a shiver ran up Randy’s spine before Cody’s head was pushed back into place. Ted wasn’t lying: Cody’s light blue eyes, the part of him that Randy loved the most, had turned red as blood.

* * *

Randy wasn’t sure what drove him to go down to the medical bay only minutes after he and Ted got back from _Legacy_ ’s UN trip, but considering he hadn’t heard anything bad over the radio about Cody’s condition, he figured that the coast was clear.

He scanned the signs on the doors for “Rhodes, Cody”, but was intercepted by a doctor just before he reached the last door of the hall. That had to be Cody’s room. That was all that was left.

“We’ve been waiting for you to get back, Captain Orton,” the doctor began, flipping pages back on the clipboard he was holding. “So nice for you to finally join us.”

“Is Cody alright?” he asked impatiently, almost ready to shove the doctor to the side and go in to see Cody’s condition for himself. “No one reported anything to me over the radio and I didn’t hear from Mission Control, so I’m assuming that he’s doing alright.”

“Mr. Rhodes is doing quite alright, considering he was hosting an alien symbiont for quite some time.” The doctor didn’t seem fazed by this revelation, but Randy felt sick to his stomach. It had to have happened when Cody flew out into the middle of nowhere on his own -

“That’s what kept him alive,” Randy said out loud, stunned but still horrified. “The alien kept him alive for that extra week when he didn’t have any supplies.”

“We doubt it was a symbiotic relationship, for lack of a better term,” the doctor continued in a frank tone, “but it did seem to tap into Mr. Rhodes’s subconscious enough to figure out how to pass as normal until that flare-up Saturday night. His body finally rejected the virus.”

 _I wasn’t with Cody for four whole months,_ Randy realized. _I was responding to an alien._

“Is it over with now?” Randy asked, eyes now flitting nervously between the door and the doctor. “Am I allowed to go in and visit him?”

“We were able to isolate and remove the virus from the host last night,” the doctor said, nodding. “So, yes, Captain Orton. You may go inside.”

Randy managed to blurt out his thanks as he went for Cody’s door with both hands, opening it slowly once he realized that coming in guns a-blazing would probably just add to the trauma his best friend had been going through.

 _His best friend._ It felt good to be able to honestly say that.

“Codes?” Randy asked cautiously as he peeked around the door and surveyed the room. There was no one else in there except for Cody, who was looking pale and unusually weak in the hospital bed. “Can I come in?”

Randy watched as Cody looked toward the door and his face lit up. “Randy,” he greeted him, moving to sit up off of the pillows with some effort, Randy holding a hand out to stop Cody as he shut the door behind him.

“Don’t strain yourself, man,” he said as he went around to Cody’s right side, taking in everything about him. The color would return back to Cody’s skin in no time, and he was probably weak from being bedridden all week, but what Randy was most concerned about was those eyes of his.

“They’re gonna stay blue this time, don’t you worry,” Cody said with a smile, shifting under the hospital sheets anyway. “Last time I take Dad’s ship out on a run. Never again.”

“It was the coming-back part that did you in,” Randy reminded him, putting a hand on the rail of Cody’s bed and looking down at him, unable to keep a relieved smile off of his face. “You did technically complete the mission.”

“And then some,” Cody added, shuddering. “That was… it was terrible, Rand.” He had a serious expression on his face now, still looking up at Randy. “I felt like I was never in my body, just watching from the outside. I felt like I was nothing at all.”

Randy nodded his understanding (or, rather, how much he could understand Cody’s experience without having gone through the same). “But you’re back now, and that’s what matters. Back where it’s normal with me, Ted, Nattie… back where you can always find snack cakes and soda in the fridge.” Randy bit his tongue from continuing as Cody smiled.   _But you’re especially back with me._

“I’m back home,” Cody agreed, reaching out and taking Randy’s hand off the bar, holding it in his own loosely.

Randy wondered how much of old Cody - now known as just Cody - was able to seep in through the cracks while he was possessed by the symbiont. But that didn’t matter now, not when he had Cody back and everything was going to be alright. Not when Cody was home again.

“And that’s where you’re going to stay, back home here, or on _Legacy_ with us again, if you’re feeling up to it.” Randy squeezed Cody’s hand. “I am so glad you’re back home.”

**Author's Note:**

> Reading this makes 'Do a Barrel Roll' kind of interesting, as parts of it happen at the same time as that story.


End file.
